


running like a river trying to find the ocean

by scatteredmoonlight



Category: The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Backrubs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 15:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20099218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scatteredmoonlight/pseuds/scatteredmoonlight
Summary: Katniss spent all day harvesting vegetables and cooking, feeling too guilty to talk to Peeta about it how tired she is. He gives her a massage and doesn't ask any questions, like she hoped he would.





	running like a river trying to find the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Love is a Wild Thing by Kacey Mulgraves. Written for my H/C Bingo square "massages/backrubs."

At supper, she didn’t say anything, but Peeta filled up the air.

He wolfed down a slice of turkey thigh and closed his eyes to savor it. Katniss watched him with schooled features, but it took effort to hide a smile. The very second he swallowed, he shook his head and declared, “Amazing. Spectacular.”

Hunting turkey had originally been merely a wise investment. The greater the game, the greater the meat. Simple. But nowadays she hunted it for Peeta’s reactions. He once told her that he’d never favored turkey before trying hers. It was only the oil or butter, whatever she had on hand, nothing special, and more often than not, the meat was uncomfortably dry whenever she cooked it no matter the effort spent in preparing it. Peeta’s roasts were the real delicacy. Anything cooked was, really. But Peeta always gobbled her turkey up as if he’d never eaten something so delightful. It made her happy. Some days it was only Peeta that made her happy. She supposed that was all anyone could hope for. She hoped that one day she could find a way to verbalize this. 

He looked at her and she hurried to take a slip of water, for some reason struck with a shy panic at having been caught staring. They’d been sleeping together for comfort, love, sex, all of it for close to a year now, but it caught her by surprise every time. The boy from the bakery loved her. Peeta Mellark was alive. He baked bread in  _ their _ oven at home. None of it seemed real, more like a dream, and yet this was her life for now and forevermore. Her desire for him overcome her shyness, and she looked him over, longing to hold him. He stopped looking so earnest and invigorated over the turkey, and now gazed at her lazily, like he’d had too much wine. But they hadn’t had any tonight. The candlelight scattered over his fine features, sharpening the edges that could never be harsh. Peeta was too sweet, his jawline never standing a chance. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, the pale skin of his chest golden in the meager fluorescent lighting. 

She wanted to tear it off him. She wanted to tell him how much she needed him by kissing hickeys over his pulse. Awaken him by mouthing over his fastened belt. Only after his cock stood flush and trapped against his thigh would she relieve him of it.

Peeta furrowed his brows in confusion. “Katniss?”

She shook her head and started piling peas and potatoes onto her plate. “Nothing.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah. It’s nothing.”

*

They turned Primrose’s room into a memorial for their family. They mixed together photos of their parents, and Katniss scourged up some photos of Primrose’s cat to create a collage of animal photographs alongside Peeta’s zoo of pets. They went there to remember, meditate, pray, take a moment for silence. The cat also has a bed in there because no matter what changed, it was still Prim’s room. She went there to pray after dinner, digesting her food and day in solemn silence.

Peeta had a book open and glasses propped on the tip of his nose when she came to bed. At the sight of her, he smiled sadly. He folded the book closed and settled his glasses atop it on the side table. Lifting the covers, he said, “Come on.”

She went to the bed, just like she’d always done back in the days of the arena.

But she couldn’t face him tonight. Everything felt different after their relationship had deepened. She felt so guilty whenever she couldn’t immediately tell him her thoughts. She laid in bed beside him but curled up in the covers with her back to him, feeling like an idiot.

Because he was Peeta Mellark, he knew exactly how to make her feel better. Always did, always would.

He rubbed a firm stroke over her shoulder blade, finding a tension there that had plagued her since she tended the squash garden and picked out the squash ready for harvest. He rubbed his thumb over the knot and spoke to her as the tension slowly released. “I loved our dinner today,” he said. “Really. Not just saying that because a cute girl made it. And okay, maybe the cute girl is a terrible cook, but…”

She laughed, unable to help herself. “Is that meant to make me feel better?”

He kissed her shoulder, over the knot. “I hope so.”

She smiled into her pillow.

“Anyway, I did like it. The turkey was juicy and those potatoes — man, those potatoes. And you’re in charge of the vegetable garden, so everything tonight was all you.”

He beckoned her to lay flat on her stomach and she obliged. With both hands, he kneaded her like bread, pressing his palms into her shoulder and smoothing her the kinks in her muscles. Over and over. Tension released here and there, and she groaned into the mattress. 

“It must hurt to stand all day, first gardening, then cooking. I always hated that in the bakey. All that standing.” Peeta rubbed small circles on the back of her neck and she wanted to cry from how good it felt. It was true: Gardening was a killer, wrecking her body with all the strange positions she had to maneuver in order to find the ripe squashes. Peas were always easier. Then came standing on her feet in the kitchen. Even if she tried to rest, she panicked over burning down the house. Constantly standing in the kitchen alleviated that worry. Her back suffered the greatest hit.

Peeta lifted her shirt and massaged her bareskin, his warm hands soothing away the aches before he even started kneading. He kissed her all over, the whiskers grown after his daily morning shave tickling her ribs and spine.

“Peeta?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Here's a tumblr post! :)](https://scatteredmoonlightt.tumblr.com/post/186759034867/everlark-hurtcomfort-fic)


End file.
